Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I get all of that but there have been many studies. McKinsey released a report, which referred to the capacity this had to widen achievement gaps in the United States in particular. There was a real risk of immigrant communities, vulnerable communities and Hispanic and black communities falling further behind in achievement in the US. We have immigrant communities, new Irish communities and, in the past couple of decades, children coming to school unable to speak English and being at a disadvantage because of that, as well as being at a cultural disadvantage because they come from a very different background and grow up in a very different environment until they go to school.

Are their particular needs being sufficiently taken into account? Children from the Traveller community who encounter particular deprivation at home - I do not wish to generalise - in many instances might not enjoy the same supports at home for learning as might other children. On the right to education, we have heard a lot about the necessity for people to be safe, which I accept and the Government must do everything possible to ensure the greatest degree of safety. I will come to special needs assistants, SNAs, in particular, in a second. However, I have heard very little regard for the right to education; that these are Irish citizen children. Moreover, the many children in Ireland who are not citizens but who are in our school system still have a right to education and that right has to be vindicated by the State if it is to have any regard to the idea of cherishing all the children of the nation equally. Their rights and their requirements are very much being put in the second place to the right to bodily integrity and the right to health. There is a sort of a hierarchy of rights going on and children's needs are very much being put in a second place up to now in the whole debate.